[Jersey Republican Biker Chick]

It is severely loosing the penalty though.

[Jersey Republican Biker Chick]

loosing = loosening.

Damn fingers

[A. Goodwin]

Actually, I'm not even sure that's true. Once you wade through all the weasel-words in this article, all it says is that judges now have options in sentencing. It doesn't say that 20 years was mandatory, that judges can no longer impose hard time, or that this law is now or has even been enforced. This author is stretching to the moon in order to support his hell-in-a-handbasket thesis, but there is really nothing to see here - MA deleted some archaic and probably redundant laws, but we haven't moved a millimeter on any hypothetical slippery slopes...

[TKDietz]

No it's not. I read the old statute and the proposed law. The old statute provides for up to a twenty year sentence for "Whoever commits the abominable and detestable crime against nature, either with mankind or with a beast..." The proposed law provides for up to a twenty year prison sentence for whoever "commits a sexual act on an animal." It also provides though that one can be fined up to $5000 in lieu of prison or in addition to prison, and it provides that as an alternative to standard prison one could be sent up to two and a half years to a "house of punishment," which is the Massachusetts equivalent to the "community correction centers" found in most states which are generally minimum security facilities for nonviolent offenders that have more programs like psychiatric care and drug treatment and more of an emphasis on rehabilitation rather than punishment. In most if not all states, there are already limits on the sentences in these types of facilities. It wouldn't surprise me at all if two and a half years was the maximum in these facilities. The max is two years in my state, but sentences over one year are strongly discouraged because inmates complete the main behavior modification program in nine months to a year and it's hard to keep the inmates busy doing something "productive" after they complete the main program.